122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



in New England is, if they want to bring a calf forward with 

 considerable rapidity, not to let him run with his dam, but to 

 take a cow of an inferior quality, a farrow cow, or, if it is a 

 milch cow, a grade cow, and put two calves upon her. For 

 bringing up male animals I think that is the better way. I 

 think we should let them have a cow, but not their own dam. I 

 know Shorthorn cows that bring up two calves in that way 

 admirably. But I do not believe that it would be best for us to 

 bring up too many of them in that way. Yet it requires a great 

 deal of care to bring them up artificially. I think the way in 

 which they are very commonly brought up, by feeding them 

 with bulky food, distends the bowels, and produces an ill-shaped 

 animal, which consumes more food than it would if brought up 

 in a proper way, with less distension of the offal, and a better 

 development of the valuable parts. 



Mr. Garfield. I spoke of the practice of the farmers of 

 Southern Ohio and Kentucky. There they raise cattle for beef, 

 not for milk, castrate their male calves and let them run with 

 their mothers. The mothers, large Durhams, adapt themselves 

 to respond to the wants of the calves, and do not give much 

 milk. The farmers pay no attention to milking their cows. 

 They have some cows that they milk, which, to appearance, give 

 double the milk that those cows do which have their young run 

 with them ; showing that by cultivation and training they can 

 be made to give more milk than they do when they simply raise 

 their offspring. Now the question I raised was, whether, in 

 raising our bull calves, Ayrshire, Shorthorn or Jersey, we did 

 not make a mistake by taking them off from our cows ? I do 

 not think myself that the practice could be followed here in New 

 England of raising all our calves in that way ; I think we could 

 not afford it. But when we want to raise a bull for a special 

 purpose, would it not be better to do it in the way nature has 

 pointed out ? That was the thought I wanted to present, and 

 upon which I wanted to get an expression of the farmers 

 present. 



Professor Agassiz. I would like to allude to one point which 

 lias some interest in this connection, and especially as bearing 

 upon the period of conception. We must know, in order to 

 appreciate the influence of the time of copulation upon fecunda- 

 tion, in what way the animal egg is brought into contact with 



